Traditional mobility aids, or walking aids, are generally used by the handicapped, elderly, or disabled to assist them in maintaining their balance while walking or ambulating from place to place. Some examples of walking aids include canes, walking sticks, wheel chairs, crutches, walkers, portable lifts, and other mobility assist devices. One popular walking aid often seen in hospitals and assisted living or nursing homes is the conventional, or traditional, walker. Traditional walkers typically include a tubular metal frame articulated to form four vertical legs and two horizontal handrails separated from each other by a plurality of horizontal structural members, or rails, and pivots in order to provide for foldability and to help orient an individual between a left handrail and a right handrail for grasping the walker with both hands in the walker's unfolded state. A set of rotating wheels, tennis balls, or rubber feet, or combination thereof, are often situated on the lower ends of the two or more vertical legs to reduce friction and improve mobility of the walker when pushing the walker forward during use. Some walkers also include braking devices used to prevent the front wheels from rotating and quickly stopping the walker from moving forward.
Particular environmental settings often pose a challenge for individuals using a walker. For example, a person may have difficulty locating a walker or maneuvering with the walker in dark environments or areas having dim lighting. The challenge is heightened for those individuals having difficulty seeing as a result of an ophthalmological disease, disorder or disability. In some circumstances, walkers are often used during the night and early morning hours to provide the individual with the mobility needed to visit the restroom, acquire drinks or food from the kitchen, seek assistance from a nursing staff member, or simply to move about as a result of not being able to sleep. As a result of the insufficient lighting, the elderly may have impaired ability to maneuver the walker, difficulty in locating a walker in a dark room, negotiating the walker safely around the environment, and mobilizing through doors and along corridors. These challenges may result in an individual losing their balance and risking a fall when attempting to access the walker or when maneuvering the walker in a dark space.
Conventional prior art devices have attempted to address the issue of using walkers in dark or low lit areas by providing a means of illuminating the forward direction or surrounding area of the walker during use. For example, some walkers have been equipped with lighting devices and batteries that are disposed in the hollow tubular frame of the walker to light a small perimeter near the front vertical legs of the walker. Other walkers have been provided with glow in the dark or phosphorescent materials that are disposed on the outer surface of the walker where the material illuminates for a predetermined period of time after being exposed to light. Other devices have included lighting devices that are preconfigured to fit particular walkers having certain dimensions. In some traditional prior art devices, operative switches needed to activate the lighting devices may be difficult to reach or may be difficult to actuate for those users with arthritis, amputations, or other disabilities that may render a physical switch very difficult or impossible to operate, especially if the switch is, for example, on the right side of the walker and the users right arm is affected by one of the disabilities just mentioned. For example, operative switches are often placed on lighting devices themselves, or are situated on the walker in hard to reach places forcing a user to bend or stretch in order to find the switch, risking the loss of balance and a potential fall when trying to access the switch. Further, because the walker may be difficult to locate at a distance, as when an individual is in bed or in a chair away from the walker, trying to find an operative switch to activate the lighting device may pose a challenge as again the visually impaired person may have difficulty locating the switch in the dark.
Many of the conventional prior art walkers that include such illuminating devices have certain drawbacks. For example, the inclusion of batteries and lighting devices within the tubular frame of a walker makes it difficult for repair or replacement of such hardware often depriving the individual of the walker for a period of time while repairs are being made. Further, the use of phosphorescent materials requires initial illumination for the material to irradiate. Not only is the emitted light proportional to the intensity of illumination required to activate the phosphorescent material, but the glow in the dark material only emits light for short periods of time requiring re-illumination over and over again. Also, many lighting devices are not universal and cannot be retrofitted to fit most walkers. Such lighting devices are dimensioned to fit walkers having particular dimensions or sizes. Many lighting devices provide a short forward range of illumination resulting in a limited field of illumination for a user. Further, the operative switch used in activating such lighting devices are often placed on the lighting device itself, or situated on the body of the walker in such a manner as to threaten the balance of a user when attempting to reach for the switch. Finally, the elderly may have difficulty locating the walker in a dark room, as the lighting devices must remain on at all times to indicate the location of the walker.
It would be desirable, therefore, to develop new methods, apparatus and systems, that overcome these and other limitations of the prior art, and increase the usability and safety of mobility aids by conveniently providing illumination when and where needed.